


Open platform

by iriswesttt



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-16 01:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8081644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriswesttt/pseuds/iriswesttt
Summary: Barry and Iris navigating being away from each other during college.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for someone who once requested a college WA fic

Barry dreaded Starling City’s train station on Sundays. It meant dropping Iris off and watching her onto the train and the feeling she was taking half of him with her. He hated arriving there too, the sun already down and the prospect of a whole week ahead of him, which, if he were being honest, was worse than the week itself, but on Sundays, that weighed on his chest and stole his appetite away. So on Sundays, as he stood in the station alone, whether it was after Iris’s visit or arriving back from home, the place felt somehow responsible for all his gloom.

But today was Friday and on Fridays, he loved that train station, and the busy noise, and all the people around, coming and going, and hugging their loved ones.

Iris was arriving at any minute and Barry would have her for two whole days, which didn’t really sound like much but, after two weeks without seeing her, was actually a great deal, especially considering how it was happening a week earlier than normal schedule.

During the first two years of college, Barry lived in the school dorms; freshman year, he had a roommate so it meant no visits from Iris, and sophomore year, he had a room for himself, but it was a little room and they had to share a single bed (which, despite how inviting it sounded, was not actually comfortable especially because Iris, however tiny, enjoyed her space), and Iris would always have to go to another floor to use the bathroom, so she hardly ever came to visit.

But now, now he had his own flat, and bigger bed, and now they could split the visits, which meant Barry would see more of her, which compensated a little bit for the fact that they were so busy with school, and Iris had her job at Jitters, and Barry had his internship, that they barely had time to actually Skype each other.

Some days would go by and they had barely even texted.

Still, once every three weeks, however an improvement for his monthly visits during the first two years, still wasn’t enough, not for Barry anyway.

But Iris seemed to think it was, so Barry never suggested extra visits, and he tried not to bother her too much, filtering the content of what he allowed himself to actually text her, because she definitely didn’t need to know how many times throughout the day he felt sleepy.

But today, she had texted him to inform him she was on the train, a week earlier, because she missed him, and Barry was suddenly jittery, waiting for 7:45 to arrive so he could leave to the station to pick her up, and not even tidying around the house seemed to make time pass by.  

He got to the station 20 minutes earlier so he had time to get her some mini brownies from the bakery close by that Iris really liked, and then he sat on the bench where they always met, waiting and trying to control his jumpy knees.

And Barry actually thought the distance would make things easier.  When he was deciding where to apply to college, Iris wanted to stay in Central City, stay with Joe, despite their fights, despite the fact that he didn’t approve of what she had decided for her life, so she changed that and she stayed, and Barry needed desperately to escape; escape from the town where his mom died and where his dad was locked, escape from the girl he loved so desperately, escape from her smiles and her eyes.

He thought the distance would help, that he would meet someone else, and fall in love, and not think about Iris all the time, and not compare whoever that was to Iris all the time.

But then he saw her smiling, big and bright, walking towards him and she gave him one of her jump-hugs and, once again, he was reminded of how mistaken he was.

And Barry had found he liked his place better when Iris was around; he enjoyed the way she spread her stuff everywhere and complained about the fact that the two drawers he had given her were not enough. When she wasn’t around everything that actually belonged to her and stayed, like the toothbrush besides his and her shampoo besides his, would seem too bittersweet, like something forgotten, carbon proof she had been there, would be there, but then she arrived and they would go back to being her stuff, and the bathroom would smell like her shampoo again.

He also liked watching her being, and the way she moved, bare feet and comfortable clothes, the way she opened the fridge and complained about him moving stuff from their original place, like she was at home.

Now she dropped herself on the sofa, swinging her feet over his lap, her cup of tea completely forgotten on the coffee table; Iris was never much of a tea person anyway, but it was too late to drink coffee, so he managed to convince her otherwise.

Barry spent the evening avoiding asking her why. He was afraid that if he pointed out that she came a week earlier, Iris would never be a week earlier again. He was afraid of pushing her to the point where she would notice it, would find it too weird, to the point where it would ruin things.

It being the fact he was in love with her.

Barry noticed when he was 13. He knew that not everybody could see how pretty Iris was way before that, he also knew she was the most beautiful person he would ever see. He even knew he wanted to kiss her since he was about 10, that was when he figured out he wanted to kiss at all, they were at the playground two blocks away from his old house and Iris was in the swing by his. She swung higher and higher and Barry stopped to watch it, then she jumped, landing gracefully, in a way Barry himself would never be able to accomplish, and the rays of sun glowed on her cheeks and her lips and Barry grew warm thinking how he would like to press his lips on her cheeks and her lips, and since then, he never really wanted to kiss anyone else like he wanted to kiss her. He knew he loved her, that after his mom died she became the most important person in his life, but he only realised that that was him, being in love with her, later on.

But then she had her legs on his lap and sleep filled her eyes, closing her lids, and then his curiosity surpassed his fear and he asked;

“So, did you have a fight with Joe or you were just tired of Central City?”

“Neither,” she told him opening her eyes; “I just missed you,” she said, like it was the easiest thing.


	2. Chapter 2

She didn’t want to go. It was all she could think the whole day, and then she would get into a vicious circle of blaming herself for wasting precious moments on wishing that things that were weren’t, and then wishing again that things that were weren’t.

It was snowing. Usually Iris would enjoy it, and the prospect of a white Christmas. On an average day, she would also appreciate the way the Starling City station was open on the platforms and how the snow would fall on the trails, reflecting and softening the fluorescent artificial lights. But today the snow seemed to add to her gloominess.

Barry was quiet by her side. Maybe he was gloomy too. She knew that it was only two weeks and he would be back for Christmas at Central City, but two weeks suddenly seemed like an exceptionally long time.

They hadn’t done much on the weekend. Some Christmas shopping; they had finally decided on her dad’s present and Iris had bought two sweaters to wear on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and somehow managed to persuade Barry to buy a pair of shoes that weren’t sneakers.

This year she got him the ridiculous expensive scientific dictionary he would always browse through whenever they went to his favourite bookshop in Central City. It was lying on her desk in her bedroom at home, already wrapped with a red bow. She thought he would like that. She hoped he would.

Barry was always good at picking her presents, he somehow managed to figure out what she wanted and didn’t even know, and then sometimes, and Iris never really knew how to react when that happened, he would give her a piece of jewellery that belong to his mom. The first time was her 18th birthday; Barry gave her a bracelet, with a charm shaped like a star hanging from it and Iris remembered Nora wearing it. Iris told him she couldn’t take it, that he should save it, give it to his wife or his daughter one day, and then he looked hurt as he said; _I get to pick who I give it to_.

So she took it gladly, humbly, not certain that Barry understood that she hadn’t meant it as a rejection to the gift, rather as surprise that he had chosen her to give it. But any of those doubts disappeared when he gave her a pair of earrings last Christmas. Barry would always notice whenever she wore any of them. He didn’t always comment on it, but she noticed his eyes lingering, and his smile softening.

The point was, she had to always be ready to how her gift would probably pale in comparison, so while they were shopping, she managed to sneakily buy him some dinosaur socks, if the dictionary sucked then she at least had got him something that would get a laugh out of him.

They had also got Barry’s flat a little Christmas tree – a fake one so it didn’t smell any good, but Barry refused to clean after a real tree, arguing that even if he was willing to do so they would never find one small enough to fit in his place. They also got some decorations to go with the tree, and watched the movie Barry was going on and on about for months on end and that had finally premiered. Iris didn’t enjoy it much, they didn’t usually agree on zombie movies, but she enjoyed seeing him happy and the way he talked whenever he got really excited about it so that made up for her not enjoying the movie itself.

When they were kids, after Barry moved in with them, this was Iris’s favourite time of the year; all the cooking and the shopping and the snow and decorating around the house and the smell of Christmas tree and the presents underneath it, but the house wasn’t right when he wasn’t there, especially around Christmas.

Especially now when things seemed to be hitting her too hard.

Then her train arrived and Barry hugged her goodbye, warm and steady. She didn’t let go when he did, and she didn’t want to go back to Central City. Go back home. So she clung to him, holding him down by the nape of his neck and she could feel her tears growing cold as they slid down her face.

Barry pulled away to study her face, and on seeing her traitor tears, he rested his forehead on hers, and called, in a soft and sweet voice;

“Iris.”

And she didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to let go of him, so she cradled his face in her hands, nuzzling their noses together, and in an impulsive surge of… something; maybe it was courage, though it felt incredibly similar to cowardliness, Iris allowed her lips to graze on his.

It wasn’t a kiss, it was barely touching, but she wanted to feel his warm breathing mixing with hers, and she could taste it, taste his smell somehow. Barry froze under her, he seemed to have stopped breathing, but then his arms closed around her waist again, keeping her on the tip of her toes, and Iris didn’t want to leave.

“I don’t want to go,” she told him, her lips moving, brushing against his; “don’t make me go.”

Barry pulled away slightly again, a scared look in his eyes.

Iris hardly ever allowed herself that; to cry and fall apart in front of someone else. When Barry left for college he was the one who shed all the tears in front of her, and when her appendix burst her dad was the one crying when she woke up from the anaesthesia.

Now she couldn’t explain what had taken over her, just that it was suddenly too much. But she knew why Barry’s eyes were studying her full of fear.

“Ok,” he conceded, but in two minutes they would announce the last call for embarking on her train and she would have to let go of him.

“Do you have any tests tomorrow?” Barry asked next.

“What?” she said, because that was such a weird change of subject.

“I’m just trying to figure out if you can skip class,” Barry clarified at her confusion and Iris realised he was taking it serious, he was planning on driving back home with her, on letting her stay, and then she really couldn’t leave, wouldn’t be able to make herself go.

She wiped her tears away and looked Barry into his pretty green eyes, his eyelashes tangling together as he blinked soothingly at her, and she wanted to kiss his worry away, instead she said;

“I don’t have any tests left to take, just two essays to turn in.”

And she hadn’t even started on writing those, a little panic coursing through her every time she thought about them, and she didn’t want to be reminded about them, but Barry seemed to be satisfied with the answer, and merely told her;

“Ok, let’s go then, you can call Joe on the way home.”

And he took her hand in his, grabbing her bag, lying on the dirty station floor next to them, with his free one and started pulling her away from the platform, and however temporary that was going to be, Iris was actually relieved.


	3. Chapter 3

Iris stepped out of his bedroom, puffy red eyes from all the crying from the night before and her hair half wet, drying curly from the shower she had just taken. She was wearing his sweater, and Barry liked when she wore his clothes, but today, all the worry going through him wasn’t allowing him to fully enjoy it.

“So, are you ever gonna tell me what happened?” he asked her after she stepped past him, where he was leaning against his cupboard, to fill her mug — well, his mug, but Iris would always use the red mug with the little foot thing when she was around his place — with coffee.

“I told you,” she said; “I’ve missed you.”

And the night before, Barry drove them both back to his place and Iris refused to eat, even the brownies they had baked earlier, and she refused to call Joe and tell him she was staying, which left the uncomfortable task to Barry himself who had to assure Joe about 200 times that everything was alright.

Barry couldn’t sleep at night, trying desperately to figure out what on earth could have happened to her, but she didn’t want to talk, and he didn’t want to force her to, so he merely watched her crying for a while, finger brushing lightly her hair until Iris had fallen asleep, and then he spent the night between a light slumber and watching Iris twist in the bed.

“Yeah, I would buy that that was all,” Barry argued; “if you hadn’t decided to stay for the week.”

She looked up at him and smiled at that, the first smile he had seen on her lips since she started crying at the station the day before.

“That’s a very nice way to describe my train station meltdown,” Iris teased, and he was glad she was joking about it, but it didn’t escape him how that wasn’t an actual answer.

“And that is your way of avoiding the subject.”

Iris looked down at her coffee mug, leaning against his kitchen counter and Barry waited, thinking that maybe she would attempt an answer if he wouldn’t push too hard.

“Jake wanted me to spend Christmas at Coast City, meet his parents,” she told him, and Barry wasn’t sure if that was her answer or if she was merely talking to him, telling him about her week. She sounded casual enough, but then if it were casual, she could have told him Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday for that matter.

Now, Barry wasn’t the biggest fan of Jake because he wasn’t the biggest fan of the concept of Jake, of another boy in Iris’s life.

_Another_. As if Barry was actually a boy in her life.

Iris had kissed some boys throughout high school and her and Barry mostly wouldn’t talk about it, just like they wouldn’t talk about the girls Barry kissed — except for Becky Cooper, Iris liked to disdain on Becky however often she could back when Barry was dating her. But Jake wasn’t just some boy she kissed anymore, he showed up last September and he was sticking around.

Barry hadn’t met Jake, and Joe didn’t even know Jake existed; Iris wasn’t particularly loquacious on the subject, so Barry tried his best to not think about it, pretend like she wasn’t kissing anyone on the days Barry wasn’t around, but now, all the sudden, Barry wanted to punch _Jake_ in the face and he never wanted to punch anyone in the face with the exception of Tony Woodward.

“Oh,” Barry mumbled noncommittally, selfishly praying she wouldn’t go. He didn’t know what he would do at Christmas without Iris.

“He wanted for me to meet his parents,” she said, the same casual tone again and that hit Barry, like someone had thrown cold water at him.

“And he — he told me he loves me.”

Barry didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t like he could blame the guy, Iris was lovable all around, she was nothing if not lovable, and kind, and gorgeous and funny and delicate and sweet. Barry would find it weird if the guy hadn’t fallen for her, but at the same time hearing that got his insides shouting _no! you’re mine!_ and he was afraid that was exactly what it would come out of his lips if he were to open them, so he stayed quiet, and listened as Iris concluded;

“Loved me.”

And it was only when he heard Iris correcting herself to the past tense that Barry realised that she was probably crying because she broke up with Jake. She had probably visited Barry a week earlier because she broke up with Jake.

He should have known.

“So you ran away?” Barry asked not really wanting to hear her answer because, what if all she needed was to talk and then she would realise how she loved Jake too, and then Barry would have driven her back to him.

But he needed to ask. That was obviously what Iris needed to talk about, so he needed to ask.

“No,” she said; “it just — weighed on me.”

“Right,” Barry answered, not really understanding what that was supposed to mean.

Iris remained quiet for a little bit, sipping on her coffee, which probably wasn’t to her taste; not strong enough, and Barry didn’t want to ask what he should ask, so he waited in silence too, until Iris looked him into the eyes and said;

“And anyway, out of the two of us, you are the one who has a habit of running away.”

He could tell she was trying to hurt him. Her sharp tone and the way her jaw tensed and her eyes focused.

It wasn’t often that Iris tried to hurt him, in fact she hardly ever did, but she would always hit the spot when she tried.

But the truth was nothing would hurt quite like Iris realising she was in love with Jake, nothing except that apparently Barry would have to help her get there.

“Well, it looks like I rubbed off on you then,” he argued.

“It’s not like that, Barry,” Iris said, her voice angry like the way it would get when she thought he was being purposely obtuse, like the way it would get when she would try to explain to him the appeal of some movie or book that she liked and he didn’t, like having to tell him that was offending her, like he should’ve just known.

“Then what is it like?” he asked.

She shook her head and after what seemed like a great deal of thought she finally said;

“You can’t run away from something you don’t belong to, not in the sense you mean.”

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved at her words, but he still wasn’t sure on how much of it he could actually believe.

“So you don’t belong to him, or are you afraid to?”

“It was fun while it was light and easy” Iris shrugged her shoulders, “and I had someone to kiss without having to text him where I was going or give any explanation or meet his family or introduce him to mine.”

She paused and studied her coffee again, then she looked up at Barry, who was in turn studying her from about three feet away, and Iris concluded;

“Having someone loving you when you don’t love them back is not as easy as it sounds, there’s nothing good in it.”

And it seemed like she was telling him, Barry, it seemed like she knew exactly what Barry felt for her, how she made him feel, and that she was asking for him to not feel it anymore, so it was suddenly difficult to breath.

“Right,” Barry managed to say.

“I guess that just added to everything else, you know?” she asked, but Barry didn’t know, he had no clue what _everything else_ was, but he agreed again;

“Right.”

But Iris must have seen in his face how _right_ was probably the furthest thing from his mind, because she stepped towards him until she was close enough to reach and told him;

“I’m not here because of Jake, Barry.”

“No, yeah,” he said; “I know.”

“I’ve missed you,” she said again.

Barry nodded. _I miss you_ seemed too light to describe the hole in him when he didn’t have her around, so he said nothing instead, and then Iris rolled her eyes and when she spoke again the anger was back at her voice;

“Anyway, you are the one who ran away and left me behind.”

“It’s college, Iris,” he argued, he knew anger was the first step whenever Iris was hurt, he didn’t want to add to her hurting; “you’re supposed to leave home.”

“Well, you weren’t supposed to leave _me_ ,” she said; “we had a deal, remember?”

He was surprised she did.

When he first moved in with Iris and Joe, Barry had a habit of running away, mostly to go see his dad, but sometimes because it was all too much and he had too much anger and hate inside him and running seemed like the solution.

Back then, Iris made him promise that he would always tell her where he was running to and that if it was too far, that he would take her with.

His eyes and nose burned at the memory of the many times he got home and Iris was grounded for covering for him and it was suddenly difficult to swallow.

“Iris,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say and in those moments, her name usually seemed to suffice.

“Sorry,” she told him, “that sounded… childish. It’s just hard, it’s almost Christmas and you’re not home, it’s just — it feels wrong.”

“Iris,” he said again.

“And then Jake is all excited because his aunts and uncles are spending Christmas at his parents’ house,” she continued; “and I wanna punch him for being so happy because I’m just reminded that I don’t have that —”

“You have me,” he argued, trying to not sound offended at the implication that he wasn’t enough, “and Joe.”

“But you aren’t there,” Iris said; “and dad’s working all the time and it’s not feeling like Christmas and I — I miss you,” she told him again.

“Yeah, I miss you too.”

“So that’s why I’m here,” she said.

“Yeah, ok. I believe you,” he said.


	4. Chapter 4

“I feel like we should talk,” Barry said.

He was by her side; they were sharing the bathroom mirror because it was the only mirror Barry had in the house. And as Iris applied her lipstick, the pink-berry one, she noticed his eyes studying her through it, while he tried to make his hair stand in the way he liked it standing.

He had been attempting on making her talk all week long.

Iris thought that after she confessed about the whole Jake thing, which she wasn’t even planning on doing in the first place, he would be happy with her answer and let things go, she thought he would enjoy having her around for a whole week; he was always complaining about how two days were way too short.

“Barry, I’m fine,” Iris guaranteed him.

She was fine.

She was fine while she was there, staying at his place at least. Where she didn’t have to think about Barry, and she could just be.

She liked spending the week at his place, she had never done that before, but now Iris was afraid she had gotten used to it; to being around him all the time again for longer than a weekend, to cooking together again, having someone to wash all the insane amount of dishes that making brownies would produce, to talking at night, like they used to, until one of them would fall asleep, and the constant influx of gibberish out of his lips when they were watching a TV show that got something scientifically wrong, and the way he grumpily mumbled before he had his coffee, like there was a serious chance of a murder happening if he didn’t get caffeine in his system.

He was such a missable person.

“Are you sure?” he asked, and as much as Iris knew he worried, and he did, he would, after seeing her crying like that, she knew exactly why the timing of the conversation; he wanted to escape the party, so she insisted;

“I’m fine.”

“Fine like you’re ok with going to this party tonight, or fine like you would rather skip it,” and there it was.

“We’re going to this party,” she informed him, sweeping her blush brush on his nose.

“I don’t want to go to the party,” Barry said, a pout on his lips, which made him look about 5 years old.

“You are always like this,” Iris complained, “you never want to go and then you go and you have fun.”

“I just rather spend time with you,” he mumbled, and as Iris didn’t argue with that, because really, she couldn’t, and the truth was; she did enjoy doing nothing with Barry way too much.

“Also that is not true,” he added; “I don’t never not want to go.”

“I’m sorry, may I remind you of the Senior Prom?” Iris argued, because he had spent weeks in a mood before the party, informing her on the day he wasn’t feeling up to it and Iris had to drag his ass down to the party because she couldn’t let him miss it, couldn’t let Rose Henderson be stood up and go to prom dateless either.

“And the 7th grade homecoming, and freshman year homecoming carnival. And the 3rd grade Christmas party —” Iris listed.

“The 3rd grade Christmas party I had a reason,” Barry intervened, stealing her brush from her hand and holding it up above her reach; “I had the most embarrassing haircut that week.”

Iris jumped to grab the brush back again, even though that was probably enough blush, but Barry went on the tip of his toes and who was she kidding, she was never reaching it, so she gave up, and, flipping her hair behind her shoulders, she told him;

“I thought you looked cute but you refused to take your beanie off for weeks,” and she remembered how Joe dropped her off at the Allens before the party because he had to go to the precinct, and Barry was complaining about his hair and, how he couldn’t go looking like that, wining in front of the perfectly decorated cupcakes Nora had baked, and his mom talked to him in a calming voice, telling him he should go and try to have fun and if he didn’t like it then she would come and pick him up, and Iris remembered wondering if her mom had been anything like Nora, if she had known how to decorate cupcakes.

“Anyway, your mom had to make you go,” Iris said and Barry smiled in agreement;

“She drove us to Emma Talbott’s house and waited for us on her car until the party was over,” he said.

“And she baked those cupcakes she used to make for you to take and I think I ate all of them before we even got there. I loved those cupcakes.”

“You loved those cupcakes,” Barry agreed.

They had never found the recipe for it. After Nora had died, Iris wanted to bake those to cheer Barry up, but they weren’t in any of her cooking notebooks and after a while, one day they were doing nothing and it had been long enough, her and Barry went through all of his old house stuff looking for the recipe and couldn’t find it.

“I miss your mom,” Iris said, because sometimes she would miss her, a lot. Nora was always the one to watch them when they were sick and couldn’t go to school, and she never made Iris feel uncomfortable, like most of her friends’ moms would, like a reminder that she didn’t have _her_ mom.

“You do?” Barry asked her, his voice soft and surprised.

“Yeah, of course,” Iris said.

“Yeah, I miss her too,” Barry told her, and then Iris felt her nose growing warm and it was like there was something heavy sitting on her chest, but she refused to let herself cry, there had been enough crying, so she swallowed her tears as Barry asked her, panic in his voice;   

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t remember my mom,” she finally confessed, because reminiscing those things about Nora were always going to be a reminder of how she couldn’t think back like this about her own mom.

“What?” Barry asked, his brows furrowed in confusion.

“I can’t remember her,” Iris told him; “I — I had this memory of this picnic, my mom, my dad and I, and it was like I could see everything very vividly, and then the other day I went to the basement looking for McSnurtle the Turtle and I found a picture of us at that picnic and I realised that I wasn’t really remembering it, I was remembering the picture.”

Somewhere in the middle of her rant, Barry had pulled her to him, hugging her close and, while that made things better, that was also what made her tears start.

“Iris,” he said.

“It’s just — dad is working like crazy and you are not around and it’s all too quiet,” she complained as she pushed him away, drying the stupid tears before they could ruin her make up, “and the house is empty and it’s insane that I miss her when I can’t even remember her.”

And there it was, Barry Allen, getting her to talk when she didn’t want to. He didn’t even had to put too much effort on it, things were always going to slip out of her lips, like she couldn’t help but to tell him everything.

“Iris, you’re allow to miss your mom,” Barry consoled her, “even if you don’t remember her, it doesn’t matter, she’s still your mom, you’re allowed to miss her.”

Iris stayed quiet as she fixed the little smudge of mascara underneath her eye, and then, more to herself than to Barry, she said;  

“I can’t believe I lost her wedding band.”

Her dad had been so mad about it, and that made things worse. She had spent so many weeks feeling like a worthless person after that.

“Iris, you have to let that go,” Barry said, taking her hand and turning her to him, then he fixed her hair back behind her shoulders and, looking her straight into her eyes, he said; “that wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” she complained, though it was, really, Joe had warned her, asked her to be careful, told her how it was something important and she lost it all the same. Practically the only thing she had left of her mom and she had lost it.

“Maybe we should skip the party?” Barry suggested and that snapped Iris out of it;

“No! Barry Allen, I swear!”

“Fine, fine,” he raised his hands in surrender and then questioned; “how do I look? Party appropriate?”

Iris fixed the collar of his shirt back into place, since their hug had somehow messed it up, and told him;

“You look very cute,” because he did, and he smiled sweetly at her and Iris thought if he asked again, she could be convinced of skipping this party and spend the evening preferably watching some movie on his bed, and wearing a sweater that smelled like him, so she turned around and said;

“Come on, let’s go.”


	5. Chapter 5

The problem with having Iris around was how easy it was to get use to that; to her complaining about his coffee not being strong enough every morning, about the lack of pressure in his shower and the noise his radiator made when _it didn’t even properly warm the apartment_. Used to having her to help with dinner and sit by his side on the sofa in the evenings and listen to him complaining about whatever crime series that was on and got every little forensic detail wrong.

Used to have her in his bed, as he woke up in the mornings, to hearing her breathing softly and making little sleeping sounds that she would probably find embarrassing, but that Barry relished in because they meant she was there, at arms’ reach, making his bed warmer, which, in the middle of winter, he greatly appreciated. He would appreciate it even if it were summer though, he would take the increase of temperature anytime over the lack of Iris that seemed to have taken his life ever since he started college.

He would normally make himself get up and start on the breakfast, avoid at all costs to be the creep who watches someone sleep, regardless of how beautiful she was, but she was leaving in three days, he would only have two mornings left, so he allowed himself some time, some time to enjoy her face all peaceful and her eyelashes resting on her cheeks, and to count the freckles on the tip of her nose and to once again wonder how it would feel to kiss her perfectly shaped lips.

And then Iris turned in her sleep, her hands searching for him, resting on his chest and she snuggled closer, nuzzling on his collarbones and Barry closed his eyes and willed himself into sleep one more time.

By the time he woke up again, properly, Iris was no longer in bed; he found her, after his shower, on the sofa, typing away on his laptop and talking to it, which she always did whenever she was writing something particularly important, one of her essays he assumed, she had been working on those all week long, getting him to proof read it but never fully satisfied with what she had written.

She was wearing his college sweater again, the one she had apparently kidnapped during her stay, and Barry grabbed himself a cup of coffee and the toast Iris had left ready, and went to sit by her side.

“Are you hungover?” Iris asked him in lieu of a _good-morning_ , closing the laptop and putting it aside.

“Not really,” he said, because despite the tequila shots at the party the day before, he was feeling fine. “You?”

“I’m fine,” she said turning to face him, “that’s why I tell you we should always drink the good stuff.”

“Yeah, I don’t think Luke’s parents are going to be all too happy about the fact that we drank all of their 100 dollar bottle of tequila,” Barry laughed, but really, that was on Luke, it wasn’t like him and Iris would ever consider throwing a party like that and let Joe come home to find all of his distilled empties.

“Hey, when are we ever getting our hands on a Patrón again?”

The first time they got drunk was tequila, a cheap one that one of their high school friends managed to get somehow for the graduation after party. Barry swore he would never drink tequila again, his eyes practically ringing out of their orbits the next morning, but as it turned out, Iris had developed a liking to it, and Barry ended up following her and eventually figured out that not every tequila tasted nasty like that.

Barry laughed again and slid down the sofa a bit. He had an essay to write for his philosophy class due on Monday and Iris would go back home on Sunday, and the last thing he wanted to spend the precious little hours they had left on was the meaning of democracy to Aristotle's, but he would have to face it eventually. At least she was there, sitting on his sofa, writing her own essay.

And then, Iris sniffing his hair snapped him out of it.

“You smell good,” she told him, her fingers traveling on his scalp, “I like the new shampoo.”

And Barry felt himself growing warmer at the compliment, at the fact she even noticed the shampoo was new. Iris would sometimes do that, say something that was innocent enough but that filled his lungs with hope and the buzzing of a few electric fireflies that were always traveling his insides when it came to her.

He said nothing in response mainly out of fear of the high pitch his voice would reach if he were to open his lips, so Iris scooched closer and Barry contemplated how much he would miss the smell of her and wondered if she ever missed him in the same ways he missed her, in all the little things, like the way the sun entering through his window would light her face, and how he got the perfect angle to look at her profile now. And then the not so little things, like the sounds of her all around.

“Jane likes you,” Iris said, her voice soft, almost a murmur, with her fingers still brushing his hair. She said it like it was nothing, like she was discussing the weather, before Barry could wonder anything else.

“What?” Barry asked, surprise causing him to pull himself up on the sofa.

“Jane. I think she’s into you,” Iris said again

“No, she’s not,” Barry guaranteed. He barely even knew Jane. They had a class together and she ended up being his lab partner, but he never even saw her outside of that, it wasn't like she knew him, it wasn’t like she could really like him.

“Ok,” Iris said, turning the TV on.

“Why would you say that?” Barry asked, because he knew that _ok_ , he knew exactly how it meant a lot of things except _ok_.

“Because, last night, at the party, she kept asking all these things,” Iris told him, and Barry watched her, and how she wouldn’t face him.

“What things?”

“About you,” Iris said.

“About me?”

“Yeah, and then about you and me,” she added, and Barry felt his stomach sinking at that. Maybe Barry had said something then, maybe he let something slip and Jane figured out he was in love with Iris.

“She asked if we were, you know... _together_ ,” Iris offered when Barry didn’t respond.

“You and me?” Barry said, standing up. It was suddenly difficult to have this conversation sitting, a need for fidgeting coursing through him.

“Yeah,” Iris said, and Barry realised how weird it must have looked, him standing up that was, so he grabbed Iris’s mug placed on the coffee table, and his own, and their plates, and brought them to the sink, so he would have something to do, something with which to distract himself.

“What did you say?” he asked turning the water on, maybe that would muffle the panic in his voice.

Iris followed him, standing by him, very close, in his college sweater.

“That we are best friends,” she said, her eyes weighing on him, but Barry couldn’t bring himself to look; “and it’s not like that.”

“Right.”

“Because it’s not like that, right?” Iris asked.

“Right.”

“Then she said you talk about me a lot,” Iris added and he totally did give himself away. God, if a virtual stranger noticed that he was in love with her, then everyone in their lives could probably tell.

He tried so hard to not let things be obvious.

“Oh, yeah?” Barry asked, mainly because he couldn’t deny it.

“So, do you like Jane?” Iris asked, and that made him turn his head towards her; this was so not where he pictured the conversation going.

“What? No!”

“She’s cute,” Iris reasoned, “don’t you think she’s cute?”

“Yeah, well, I mean, that’s not the point,” Barry told her.

“What is the point?” Iris asked, and Barry closed the faucet and turned to face her, drying his hands on his t-shirt like she was always telling him not to do because it would stretch the t-shirts all wrong.

“I don’t know,” he said, searching in Iris eyes for something, any clue as to what she wanted to hear from him, “I don’t wanna date her,” he shrugged.

“Why not?” Iris insisted and Barry was feeling cornered, so he tried to invert their positions somehow;

“Why don’t you want to be Jake’s girlfriend?”

“Because my life is already full,” Iris told him, looking him straight in the eyes. And maybe that was why Barry couldn’t understand what exactly she meant by that; Iris’s eyes were very distracting, especially when she was focused on him like that; it was like they had this power of freezing him into place, though freezing seemed like the wrong word; it was never cold, maybe she was melting him.

“Full of what?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper

“School, and my job, and you know, my dad,” Iris listed, “and you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah,” she said, like she was daring him to disagree.

“Iris,” he said and as she didn’t explain, he asked;

“What does that mean?”

Iris took one last step towards him, closing any distance still left between them and then her hand brushed his hair wandering down his jaw line and then she traced his lips with the pad of her finger and Barry felt his skin tingling all over.

Then Iris was going onto the tip of her toes, pulling Barry down to her by the nape of his neck and brushing her lips on his.

She had done it before, at the station, she did brush her lips on his then, and Barry spent the last week trying to convince himself it meant nothing. It had been a proximity matter. He rested his forehead on hers, she merely hadn’t move away. And then, at the station, it did seem like it could have been only the circumstances, but now it seemed like she meant it, and suddenly all Barry could hear was his heart beating exceptionally loud in his ears, and all he could feel were his insides doing a somersault, and her lips, soft and damped and warm, filling the space between his.

“Iris,” he said when she pulled away, taking a step back, leaving him missing her, and her eyes full of expectation, studying him, kept him in place.

He didn’t know what to do with his hands, how to control the desperate urge to grab her and feel her.

“Iris, say something,” Barry asked.

“You say something,” she challenged. It was probably fair, she had kissed him. Iris kissed him. Iris kissed him, Barry. He had just felt her lips on his.

He reached for her hands, taking them in his, and then Barry made a point of interlacing their fingers. His breathing felt shallow and there were tears puddling in his eyes, trying to escape, but he made himself confess;

“I love you.”

Iris was watching their hands attentively, but at his words, she abruptly looked back into his eyes, a little smile on her lips and Barry took that as permission, crashing his lips to hers again, pressing her closer to him, fingers searching for anywhere he could find her skin.


	6. Chapter 6

“Stop staring!” Iris instructed Barry for the second time. His eyes on her were very distracting. The way they lingered, the way they seemed to touch her skin.

“Why?” Barry asked and even without diverting her eyes from the paper, Iris just knew exactly what kind of self satisfied grin he had on.

“You’re messing with my concentration,” she said and Barry seemingly took that as his cue, pulling her closer to him by the legs, causing her to slide down the pillow and from under the blanket, lying flat on the mattress, and she couldn’t help the giggle as he told her;

“You haven’t seen me messing with your concentration yet.”

Iris was enjoying his new found confidence.

She was enjoying many things about the last couple of days, like the fact that apparently there were still many things left to learn about each other; like how his belly felt under her fingertips and how it felt pressed against her own. Like what all the different sounds that she seemed able to get out of him meant. Like how his lips felt against her skin.  

“Oh! You certainly think highly of yourself, don’t you?” she teased, because no matter what, she would always enjoy that too, and his sheepish smile, and the way he let his hands wander up her leg, opening them enough for him to fit between them to press a kiss on the inside of the thighs, causing Iris to close them abruptly, reprimanding him;

“Barry!”

“I’m just saying,” he shrugged and she liked his bed hair too, and how there, like that, he seemed hers, like she’s got him all for herself.

“It’s your essay I’m trying to read here,” she argued.

“I know,” he told her, sliding his fingers down her collarbones, between her boobs.

“It’s your grade,” she pointed out. He asked her to revise his essay in the first place.

“Yeah, it is,” he said, but he then licked her belly button, completely missing the point she was trying to make.

“Barry!” she reprimanded again, slipping out of his touch a pulling the blanket over her once again; “go put on clothes,” she instructed because she wouldn’t be any help for his essay while rolling around in bed with him naked.

“Why? Am I distracting you?” he asked wiggling his eyebrows. What a nerd!

“Maybe I should go put on clothes,” she threatened, and at that Barry raised his hands in surrender saying;

“No! Ok, I’ll go put on clothes.”

She watched him getting dress and it was every bit as entertaining as watching him out of the clothes. Ok, maybe not every bit, but close enough.

“Now you stay there,” she required as he started approaching her once again. His clothes were staying on about 0.1 seconds if he were to get into bed once again.  

“This game isn’t fun anymore,” he pouted.

“Go grab me coffee,” she asked, more to give him something to do than for actual need of coffee, and Barry seemed to understand, giving her a couple of minutes and bringing back a toast as well as coffee, and then sitting patiently in his armchair by the bed, inhaling his own toast and remaining quiet until she announced;

“Ok, done.”

“Is it good?” he asked pulling his t-shirt off and placing her mug and his paper on the nightstand by her side.

“Just a few things,” Iris said in protest, but Barry was pressing his lips against her neck already, making her forget what the few things were.

“So I can take my pants off now?” he asked, ignoring her.

“Don’t you wanna hear my comments?” she asked him.

“Haven’t you written those down?” he pulled his head up and looked towards the essay, adding, “I see a lot of things crossed there.”

“Yeah, but we should discuss it,” Iris argued.

“Iris, no,” he said, pulling the covers over himself, his lips kissing her down the neck, on the birth mark she had on her left boob, “you’re leaving in nine hours.”

“Yeah, so?” she questioned even though she pretty much agreed with the sentiment.

“So, I don’t wanna talk about my essay,” Barry told her, his voice muffled against her skin; “we can do that while you’re on the train.”

“Right.”

“Can’t do this while you’re on the train,” he sucked on her skin below her bellybutton, wet and warm.

“That’s a very good argument,” she said, allowing her fingers to find his scalp.

“A+?” he asked looking up at her from under his stupidly long eyelashes.

“I mean, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she argued, “I see the potential of an A+,” she added after he gave her another kiss a little lower.

But then he stopped, and rising on his knees he looked at her with bittersweet smile on his lips and told her;

“I’m going to miss this.”

Iris pulled him down to her, kissing his bottom lip open and flipping him under her before questioning;

“Sex?”

“No,” he blushed like he wasn’t just about to lick her apart; “just you.”

“Just me?” Iris asked because she knew that wasn’t all of it, they already missed each other enough before as it was, and the only part she wasn’t enjoying in all of this was the fact that she would have to go weeks at a time without feeling him against her. It was difficult before, it would be impossible now, and that was filling her with fear.

“And you and me,” Barry complied.

“One week, right?” she asked, because they were starting easy, in one week he would follow her to Central City and they would have all of the winter break. It was afterwards that the real nightmare would come.

She settled cradling his hips between her legs and brushed his hair off his forehead, leaning in to kiss his lips.

“Yeah, one week,” Barry agreed and he pulled her sitting by his side instead, sitting up himself, and asked, his voice suddenly serious;

“Are we gonna tell Joe?”

“No,” Iris said.

“No?” he asked, and maybe Iris was imaging the hurt on his face.

“I think we should give ourselves a little time, you know,” she argued, reaching for him once again, sliding onto his lap, as Barry’s eyes studied her, and he questioned, in a slightly panicked manner;

“Time? Time for what?”

“To figure this out,”  she offered.

“Figure what out?” Barry asked, sliding away from her, “I mean, don’t you want me?”

“Yes, I do,” she guaranteed him, her hands reaching for his hair.

“I want you,” he said, more calmingly but still not his normal pitch, “so why is that not enough?” he asked.

“We don’t know how we are together yet,” Iris argued, and Barry allowed her to kiss him, kissing her back, and laying her down on her back, he asked;

“Is this not us being together?”

“Yes, this is us, being together,” she conceded, but it was one thing being together like this, when there was no one watching and they needed virtually no filter, so she added;

“Alone together, in your apartment, naked all the time.”

“This is the best kind though,” he smiled naughtily.

“Yeah, I agree,” Iris said and he kissed her laughter and asked;

“So?”

“So we enjoy it some more without my dad’s eyes on us,” she proposed.

He paused, eyes heavy on her.

“Yeah, ok,” he said finally, settling over her, and after one more kiss, he checked;  

“We are together though, right? I mean you’re not going back to Jake or anything like that, are you?”

Iris laughed at the way his forehead creased with worry and that his eyes filled with fear, like he was seriously considering something like that might happen.

“Iris!” he called in an annoyance.

“You’re cute,” she justified and Barry shook his head vigorously, saying;

“No, no!”

“Yes, you are,” she disagreed, “adorable even.”

“This isn’t me being cute,” he argued. “What if I said maybe I’ll give it a go with Jane, uhn?”

Iris pulled him away by the hair and informed him;

“Then you would be in for a world of pain.”

“Like you can take me,” he rolled his eyes but there was a smile on his lips and Iris appreciated that, the way it softened his whole face like that was enough of a guarantee that she was in it.

“Oh, I can take you,” she assured him, which she could, he was all skinny limbs and she knew exactly where his ticklish spots were.

“Yeah, you probably can,” he gave in, his hands feeling her up, and then sliding down her arms and intertwining their fingers, like he had done before, when she first kissed him, like that was some sort of declaration.

“You’re mine,” she informed him

“Yeah, ok,” he agreed, and then after a pause he asked; “And are you mine?”

“Ok,” she said, because she didn’t mind too much being his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, so, I feel awkward doing this but I guess is better than just disappearing; for the moment I can safely say I’m not writing fanfics anymore. It has gotten into a point that I’m just wishing the show would be better every week and being met with disappointment, it came to a point that only adds to my anxiety and it’s not healthy, I love writing for them despite how much the show fucks it up but it makes it harder to let go, so I’m stepping away from the fandom. Thanks for everyone who sends all the kind messages, and comments on my fics and reblogs them or even just likes and leave kudos, you were definitively what propelled me to keep writing and publishing and made me a better and more confident writer, so I’m really truly grateful.


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